Edryon
Luís Oselieri
All rights reserved. It’s unauthorized the copying or use of all or part of the contents of the book and its characters without permission of the author.
Copyright : 2009
This book is specially dedicated to:
My mother, for always helping me in my life, at all times. My brothers, to showing me the path of honesty and work. Izis, a great friend, for being caring and tolerating me even when i talk too much. To all my family in Brazil. To all the RPG players, all the fans of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien, and anyone who likes a good fantasy book, i hope you have lots of fun and entertainment with Edryon, and the world of Fynge.
Summary
Prologue - The Lord Of The Ancient World……………….. 11 Chapter 1 - Distant Past……………………………………………………… 27 Chapter 2 - Meeting With The Druid…………………………………….41 Chapter 3 - Three Messengers………………………………………………. 53 Chapter 4 - The Necromancer…………………………………………………65 Chapter 5 - A Big Decision………………………………………………… 77 Chapter 6 - Unnecessary Deaths……………………………………….…. 91 Chapter 7 - New Victories…………….……………………………………….105 Chapter 8 - Purified……………………………………………………………… 119 Chapter 9 - The Wise’s Leadership………………………………………… 133 Chapter 10 - End Of Dreams………………………………………………… 147 Chapter 11 - Unexpected Reunion……………………………………….. 161 Chapter 12 - Checkmate……………………………………………………….. 175 Chapter 13 - Forbidden Spells………………………………………………191 Chapter 14 - Two Brothers…………………………………………………. 209 Chapter 15 - A New Hope………………………………………………. 225 Chapter 16 - Immortal………………………………………………………….. 243 Chapter 17 - Shields, Spears, Artifacts………………………………… 261 Chapter 18 - The New Diary……………………………………………….. 279 Chapter 19 - Unexpected Attack……………………………………….. 297 Chapter 20 - In Search Of Power…………………………………………. 319 Chapter 21 - Mismatch Of Travelers…………………………………. 337 Chapter 22 - Imprisoned…………………………………………………. 357 Chapter 23 - The Return Of The Betrayer……………………………. 377 Chapter 24 - Against The Winds………………………………………….. 401 Chapter 25 - New Journey………………………………………………… 423
Prologue
The Lord Of The Ancient World
Desperate in the middle of the road. Tears burst from
Edryon’s face and the other skeletal children, who ran with their torn clothes and feet full of worms.
“Please! This place… I do not want to stay here! My mother… I want her!”, cried the gray elf, lowering his face, looking at the rammed earth with tears. He ran afflicted, limping on his bleeding left leg, under a sun that seemed to explode all its terrible heat, as if they were dangerous infernal flames, warming his back, scorching his skin so that the poor elf had never imagined that one day he could pass by that horrible nightmare.
“‘It’s stupid, is not it, his skinny body? Go, go, boy! Another lesson even tougher do you want?”, Shouted one of the
necromancers, a cruel man with his arms full of frightening scars, and torn voice, then that he struck a blow so violent that it nearly broke the Edryon’s neck.
The elf continued to run with shaky legs, full of wounds and gore. Then the same man grabbed his left arm, and tipped it with a sweep, when he laughed so insistent, revealing yellow and rotten teeth.
“Lord, this gray skin. He’s funny. His skin, we need to start it.”, Said another necromancer.
“Okay, but only one piece…. These little slaves, we need them alive. Get up there, kid. Now!”, Shouted the leader of the necromancers.
Edryon knelt down and tried to clean the blood that trickled from his mouth. He stared at a necromancer with a crooked nose and full of warts, which raised the elf gray, pulling hard for his silver hair. The man with the blade of his sword, which seemed tailored to his right arm, touched the tip of the weapon on the skin of the elf. The blade then made a big cut on his left leg.
Peasants raced close to the enslaved children, but they also sought to escape from the necromancers. Edryon, looking for a man who had mounted a black horse, shouted: “Please sir, help me!”
“Little elf, I’m sorry. My wife, I have to find her!”, The grayhaired man shouted. Then he received a whiplash, helding his neck, playing him in the middle of the dusty land.
When the sun appeared less intense, so in the evening, the evil men gathered all the children in one group of two rows. They remained shackled, seated and barefoot. While the necromancers were guarding the entrance to the city, waiting for new orders, Edryon saw a human boy with pale skin, then he said:
“I miss my mother.”
The boy looked frightened for the elf and flinched.
“Me too. But we have no chance. We will die, is not it, elf?”
“I do not know, I did not want all this sadness… I hurt inside. Are you one of the infected?”, Edryon asked.
“Yes… I can not stand walking in the midst of this sun.” “It’ll be okay, I hope.”, Said the elf, looking up with eyes full of tears.
When the night came, the necromancers pushed him and the other boys in a hurry, holding whips full of thorns and wearing black robes with strange symbols painted in red.
Edryon did not wanted to be alone and abandoned, far from his family, away from all the people he loved most, and away from his friends. But now he was just another little slave, one of the most condemned to death, hoping that some miracle would save him from those evil men.
“These kids are adorable… go with them out of here now,” cried the captain, pulling cruelly by the long blond hair in an expression of great joy, the severed head from the body of a woman who had asked for mercy.
Edryon did not want to see all those deaths, and being forced to watch helpless women suffering at the hands of those men who seemed to know only hatred and inhumanity. Maybe the world was no longer the same as before, because peace was over in large parts of the kingdom, and the gray elf felt increasingly abandoned and with no strength to continue living. The rain that seemed increasingly strong, watering the scattered and lifeless bodies across the road, plunged in the city. It revealed a bleak future of uncertainties for the world of Fynge. Edryon hoped that one day he could escape from the necromancers, to be able to find his mother and his older brother.
Approaching the iron gates, mounted on impressive warhorses, necromancers whipped merciless, beating men and women who begged for their lives. Immediately Edryon became increasingly worried, knowing that maybe his family could also be part of the slaves. He could not remember how he had separated from his mother, and the only thing he thought was to escape with his life, returning to home, to open his eyes the next day and to find that everything had been just a nightmare.
The cold night’s sky, cloud-covered shallow revealing the stars, filled with fast and powerful arrows. They tore by a fantastic way the winds, falling and hitting the high necks of rotten flesh and gray skin. If he could hide behind some of the wooden houses, he could get away the necromancers, but Edryon was always afraid of being alone in the dark, he could find unfamiliar shadows, strange men, and huge rats. He had no other choice but to continue walking with sad faces of those children, prepare
d for new lashes. Then the evil men continued shaking and preparing with great skill, strange-bladed swords.
They walked with their bodies filled with sores. Those swords were causing a great terror to the gray elf, because when they hammered their victims, they uttered cries that could be heard throughout the city. Edryon thought maybe those weapons had life itself, it could be vampire swords, but the elf was not sure.
A red beam as quick as a flash, but bright enough to brighten the whole area, came from the top of the city towers. It hitted some of them, tearing out their arms, but they still walked as if nothing else mattered to them. Edryon stared at a boy that was looking too thin, which fell in the middle of the road, and at the same time he missed his mother again. He did not want to see her in the middle of the slaves, much less wanted to lose his brother, but he felt like nothing was possible to take away from this horrible situation.
The necromancers walked in the earth-covered from bodies of dead soldiers. Some of them took the opportunity to decorate their black armors with fingers, hands and feet, hanging by ropes around their necks, like beautiful necklaces of war. When some people saw the strange men who crossed the gates of the city of Hanneris, they ran to their homes, closing the doors.
The necromancers wore black cloth masks, hiding their faces, but their bodies pierced with arrows showed that there appeared to be no ordinary men. Their swords sewn on their right arms were bleeding constantly, as if they had life itself. They were fifty, but had enough power to wipe out entire armies. They came quickly in a temple, dragging new corpses, which were broken down into their new collars of war.
Two of them closed the temple doors, and repeatedly laughed, startling three girls who wept as they embraced. The commander looked at a man who asked to not die, and knelt down, revealing evil and unkind eyes.
“You are brave. Do you not want to leave this world, little mortal?”, He said, touching his bloody sword in his bare neck.
“I do not mind death, but please… I have a family! They need me, let me go!”
The captain went with his sword, more eager to kill a peasant, when suddenly a violent magic lightning utterly destroyed the temple gates.
Rasputin then went quickly on the scene, kicking and crumbling two necromancers who tried to attack him. At the tip of his magical staff there was a brilliant ruby and a red skull, which emitted bright lights, scaring people who were still alive inside the temple. The magician continued walking through the wooden benches, and retired a grimoire while dodged a spectacular sword-stroke.
He climbed over a bank, then ten ten furious necromancers approached, shouting strange words. A big hurricane has formed in front of the three girls who embraced and continued weeping, Rasputin knew he had to act fast because the necromancers cruelly killed every person who tried to leave the temple.
“I see you are happy with so many deaths, is not it? Drop them now or will be sorry!”, The wizard shouted, placing his shield of wood shaped like a coffin lid in front of the three children.
The hurricane began to violently lift and drag the wooden benches that affected all who still insisted on keeping up. The commander of the necromancers raised his sword again, and then another woman fell among the dead, without her head. Rasputin took advantage of a moment of distraction by the master, then quickly disappeared with a spell of teleportation.
When the captain turned to near four desperate men, Rasputin appeared before him and said:
“So to hear the truth… I do not think you are so brave and very good as I thought. Staying killing all these innocent people…”, his hands concealed by magical blue flames was trembling with anxiety, “Back to hell now!”
The commander made a violent attack with his bloody sword toward the magician, who received the blow when he disappeared, as if it were an illusion. Rasputin was well aware of magic to trick his stronger enemies. The captain looked surprised for a figure that went before him like a thunderbolt, and then he knelt, feeling severe pain. He looked at his own heart being ripped off just as you take a fruit from a tree.
“I’m dying… please do not… how can you be so stupid? Did you thought even I can die of natural ways like the humans?”
Rasputin then realized that the master was still alive, and laughing with an air of great contempt. When he just ripped the heart out of the leader of the necromancers, he was punched so hard in the chest, which meant that the magician was thrown in the middle of his own hurricane he had created.
Almost half of the temple was completely destroyed, large pieces of wood flew everywhere. Three necromancers gathered all the children together in one group, as they looked with pride to two women who had just a horrible murder.
“Excellent! Take the kids out!”, The captain shouted, raising his bloody sword in the air.
So seven of them were pulling some girls by the hair, with terrifying violence. And the boys were kicked and beaten, but none of them were murdered by the evil men. The tornado continued its path of destruction, dragging marble statues, altar pieces and some pilings.
Rasputin looked down, while large stones was hitting his body, he needed to do something urgent. He was still stuck in the center of the hurricane, and his left leg suffered a deep cut caused by a large splinter of wood. He retired with much difficulty some barbs that were lodged in his neck, and tried to focus on another type of magic that could save him.
Outside the temple, the King William looked with sadness the city invasion, but at the same time he felt proud to be able to assemble his army. Twelve hundred elves, among warriors, archers and spearmen, they all seemed eager to fight and destroy the necromancers who kept coming on strange and skeletal horses and holding swords that crossed any soldier who tried to prevent them.
“I want you to be well prepared because I believe that some greater force of evil is approaching to Hanneris,” cried the king, deftly wielding his broadsword.
“Majesty! Rasputin entered the temple, but he has not returned. The necromancers captured many children! What should we do?” Asked Urentir, the commander of the elvish druids.
“Surround the temple, the archers will be here. The lancers will attack from above with the griffin. Come on, we can not waste any more time!”
Pieces of wood fell off from the walls of the temple, Rasputin then remembered the magic ritual of cancellation. It would be risky to do magic without consulting his grimoire, but he had no other choice.
Slowly the magic tornado was weakening, Rasputin was able to say the correct words of the ritual, but the necromancers were still coming, as they crossed their bloody swords against the innocent peasants. The magician crashed near a boy who looked very scared, then took a piece of wood lying on the ground and shouted:
“Focus Espirit, Focus Nature!”
Then the took shape and became a great magic wall, forming a kind of shield, which turned in front of the boy.
“Stay here, and do not accept help from anyone.”, Rasputin said, looking up to dozens of mounted lancers on the war, invading over the destroyed temple.
In a moment of desperation, the King William went to help a group of children who were in the midst of the flames of a burning house, then someone approached rapidly, riding on a huge white wolf of war.
“Kordius? What are you doing here? I thought you was dead in the war in the first cataclysm.”, Said the king, looking surprised and amazed to the sorcerer of the elementals.
The sorcerer then descended from the wolf, and quickly went into the flames, hugging the children who ran towards him for help. Suddenly, he disappeared in the fire, to emerge as a flash in front of the king.
“Now you saw that I’m not dead, I want you to know that I did not approve your idea to bring to Hanneris the Grimoire of Eternity.”
The king seemed increasingly concerned with the realization that Kordius showed an arrogance that he did not have when he worked in the Kingdom of the Light.
“But you knew that even if the grimoire continued in the Forest of th
e Spirits with the monks, it would be very risky. It could bring a great unbalance to nature.”
Kordius knelt, healing two wounded boys with his burning hands, surrounded by a golden aura of magic, and shouted:
“How silly! The monks were the only ones worried about the magic of the ancient world! It were they who prevented the druids to commit some folly. Hanz should not have to meddle with things that do not concern him.”
“Hanz? But it was him who discovered that you were dodging from the objectives of the kingdom! You always thought of the rewards, but forgot that as a sorcerer, you should be more responsible with the magical rites.”
When the last necromancers were killed by the powerful elven army of the Kingdom of the Lights, the peace seemed to have returned to the city of Hanneris. But suddenly, hundreds of large green lights appeared in the sky, taking shape and coming into a frightening speed.
“William, I hope you understand.”, Kordius said, looking proudly at two thousand spirits of elves who descended, possessing the bodies of warriors, making the most of them to fall in the middle of the road, writhing in involuntary movements.
Then the king mounted on his war horse, and rode quickly towards the Council of the Leaves. He must notify the druids that Kordius had invaded the city, so he felt that he should find a new way to hide the Grimoire of Eternity.
“Urentir, I want you to stay with the grimoire. Get out of town as quickly as possible, and do not let the necromancers of Kordius to find you. I am confident in your abilities. If you can get to the city of Shannen, tell Salur we need reinforcements, and five hundred of clerics and two hundred of paladins will be sufficient to purge the spirits.”
Two days after the invasion, the city of Hanneris now was completely dominated and controlled. Kordius, despite failing to capture the grimoire, took advantage of the weakness of small winged creatures who inhabited the Kingdom of the Underdark. With ancient and forbidden rituals, the sorcerer of the elementals manipulated the race for his own profit, wiping out entire species and invoking the elven spirits.
Edryon (Book 1 of Edryon Trilogy) Page 1